Hodson Internship Re ports - Summer 2020 Annapolis, Maryland - St. John's College
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Hodson Internship Reports Summer 2020 Annapolis, Maryland
Hodson Internship Reports
Summer 2020
Table of Contents Page
Overview of Hodson Internship Projects 3
Tbel Abuseridze ‘20 6
National Geographic Magazine-Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia
Yoonkyoung Choh ’20 7
Korea Startup Forum, Seoul, South Korea
Francisco Contreras ‘20 9
Polycentric Learning Group, Guatemala City, Guatemala
Julia Cooper ‘20 10
Timberman Beverly Productions, Los Angeles, CA
Sophia Cote ’21 11
Kenneth Milton Fine Arts, Chestertown, MD
Ava Cusey ’22 12
American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC
Austin Dumas ’21 13
NASA NIAC Program, Washington, DC
Caleb Dutton ’21 15
American Shakespeare Center, Staunton, VA
Rachel Gordon ’21 16
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), Edgewater, MD
Ellie Gott ’21 17
The Light House, Inc., Annapolis, MD
Samuel Hage GI’20 18
Key School, Annapolis, MD
Allegra Hall ‘22 19
Elan Productions, Annapolis, MD
Isabella Hougie ’22 21
Maryland Office of the Public Defender, Annapolis Office, Annapolis, MD
1
Su Karagoz ‘20 22
New York University Press, New York, NY
Yufei “Chris” Liu ’22 23
Medstar Georgetown University Hospital, Multiple Sclerosis and
Neuroimmunology Center, Washington, DC
Micalah Miller ’22 24
Maryland Office of the Public Defender, Annapolis Office, Annapolis, MD
Will Payne ’22 25
Smithsonian Folklife Rinzler Archives, Washington, DC
Jessica Peterson ’21 27
City of Kansas City, Missouri Dept. of Planning and Development, Kansas City, MO
Wilson Redfield ’21 28
Historic Annapolis Foundation, Annapolis, MD
Nicholas Thorp ’20 29
East Oaks Studio, Cary, NC
Anurag Upadhyaya ’21 30
Vidyarthi Pustak Bhandar, Kathmandu, Nepal
2
Overview of the 2020 Hodson Internship Awards
Tbel Abuseridze ’20, National Geographic Magazine, Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia
Work as a science/culture reporter and photographer on the magazine’s electronic platform; shoot or
select images for his own stories while reporting directly to the Editor-in-Chief.
Yoonkyoung Choh ’20, Korea Startup Forum, Seoul, South Korea
Support the director of policy by studying the situation of startup businesses in Korea through
comparison with other countries’ startups; organize data; research foreign cases; and attend meetings
while preparing the conference hall and meeting documents and providing meeting summaries.
Francisco Contreras ’20, Polycentric Learning Group, Guatemala City, Guatemala
Design and implement a training program of “Getting Things Done” (GTD) for fifty managers; edit and
revise Spanish translation of agile management practices; assist in training and help implement
“holacracy” management and organizational governance.
Julia Cooper ’20, Timberman Beverly Productions, Culver City, CA*
Conduct research and provide notes on scripts and book coverage; attend development and/or production
meetings; provide detailed notes on scripts in active development; and help with administrative duties.
Sophia Cote ’21, Kenneth Milton Fine Arts, Chestertown, MD
Learn how to examine a painting, identifying and describing its condition using terms used by
professional conservators; learn how to conduct tests and propose a treatment proposal; participate in
the actual cleaning of a painting.
Ava Cusey ’22, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC
Assist in the economic policy studies department with its strategic communications operations; maintain
department social media accounts; compile daily reports on important news stories and other economic
policy research; and assisting with department newsletters.
Austin Dumas ’21, NASA NIAC Program, Washington, DC**
Interview past NIAC Fellows to identify successes and failures to measure the effect and impact of the
program; summarize in a comprehensive report. In addition, review documents on the requirements for
radiation risk mitigation in a planned return to the Moon; examine the ability of current forecast tools to
meet timeliness requirements for astronauts to reach safe haven in active periods of solar activity.
Caleb Dutton ’21, American Shakespeare Center, Staunton, VA
Assist in maintaining production materials, marketing materials, and other items of interest in a center
designed to explore the English Renaissance stage and its practices through performance and
education; work with archives and scholars.
Rachel Gordon ’21, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), Edgewater, MD*
Conduct literature review and research; data analysis, modeling of existing data sets related to
coastal/estuarine acidification chemistry; analyses are designed to contribute to a larger analysis of non-
carbonate alkalinity in the Chesapeake Bay and its effects on acidification; co-author peer-reviewed article.
Ellie Gott ’21, The Light House Inc., Annapolis, MD
Work with the on-site Safe Harbour Resource Center, greeting at-risk populations currently
experiencing homelessness with referrals to in-house services; track data, collaborate with the workforce
development team; participate in public outreach, volunteer coordination, and admin assistance.
3
Samuel Hage, GI’20, The Key School, Annapolis, MD
Assistant teach ninth-grade classes studying ancient and medieval literature, history, and
philosophy; work with student on reading and writing skills in the Writing Center; support
teachers with grading and quizzes.
Allegra Hall ’22, Elan Productions, Annapolis, MD
Learn and practice in areas of arts management including strategic planning, program development
and assessment, relationship building, financial management, marketing, box office management,
and leadership training.
Isabella Hougie ’22: Maryland Office of the Public Defender, Annapolis Office,
Annapolis, MD
Work closely with the Assistant Public Defender in the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court; attend
court to observe proceedings involving felony criminal cases such status conference motions, hearings,
and trials; accompany attorney to the jails to conduct legal visits with clients.
Anton Kalmysh ’20, MZ Wallace, Inc., New York, NY
Work with the Ecommerce Coordinator and digital team to support and execute MZ Wallace’s e-
commerce and customer experience strategies; help create a brand experience that engages
consumers, solidifies communication, and drives conversion and sales; and research and provide
reporting on current topics in UX, including but not limited to risks and opportunities, the
competitive landscape, and ecommerce trends. Please note: this internship began in Fall 2020.
Su Karagoz ’20, The New York University Press, New York, NY
Write press releases for forthcoming titles; create ad and direct mail copy; design simple ads and
fliers; solicit blog entries from authors; and identify and correct errors in data creation and
dissemination.
Zachary Leveroni ’22, University of Chicago, Department of Psychology, Chicago, IL*
Obtain a deeper understanding of research and operations in a neuroscience laboratory; gain an
understanding in using a model organism for neuroscience research; become competent in general
scientific research methodologies; support the management of the animal colony; be proactive in
researching relevant literature and techniques; participate in lab meetings and discussions. Please
note: this internship began in Fall 2020.
Yufei “Chris” Liu ’22, Medstar Georgetown University Hospital, Multiple Sclerosis
and Neuroimmunology Center, Washington, DC*
Coordinate educational seminars targeting newly diagnosed MS patients; help to develop
educational content related to MS; shadow neurologists; assist the research team with clinical
trials.
Jameson Marshall ’20, Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of
Maryland, Baltimore, MD
Investigate allegations of suspected violations of Federal criminal statutes in the District of
Maryland, including death eligible cases. Please note: this internship began in Fall 2020.
Micalah Miller ’22, Maryland Office of the Public Defender, Annapolis Office,
Annapolis, MD
Assist the Public Defender with her caseload; attend court to observe the Anne Arundel County
Adult Circuit Drug Court and all proceedings involving felony criminal cases; review discovery and
offer briefs on the cases; learn issue spotting; draft potential pre-trial and post-trial motions; and
perform legal research.
4
William Payne ’22, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Center for Folklife Cultural
Heritage, Washington, DC
Assist director of Web and IT with daily operations related to the management of the website and
digital collection; digitize images; scan archival documents; encode audio and video; enter meta
data; and contribute written content for website.
Jessica Peterson ’21, City of Kansas City, Missouri, Department of Planning and
Development, Kansas City, MO
Assist with updating the City’s Comprehensive Plan; perform research related to current planning;
and assist with development case review.
Wilson Redfield ’21, Historic Annapolis Foundation, Annapolis, MD
Assist with the planning, promotion and execution of special fundraising events, including building
and maintaining relationships with local media; assist in marketing through social media channels;
build and maintain press kits; write and distribute press releases and advertising copy.
Nicholas Thorp ’20, East Oaks Studio, Cary, NC
Provide support in project management, including film and live-stream production and editing;
participate in client relations and marketing, event-planning, grant writing and fundraising, and
film production; work on event/art exhibitions and planning.
Anurag Upadhyaya ’21, Vidhyarthi Pustak Bhandar, Kathmandu, Nepal
Act as an assistant editor assigned to proofreading, critically commenting on writings;
communicating with authors; and administrative communications within the publication.
*Hosted or funded by a SJC alumnus/a
Please note:
Due to changes brought about by COVID-19 at some internship sites, 17 students awarded Hodson
funding were offered alternatives. Five Hodson awardees participated in coursework through Pathways
and twelve awardees have deferred their Hodson funding to fall 2020 (class of 2020 only) or summer
2021.
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Tbel Abuseridze ‘20
National Geographic Georgia
Tbilisi, Georgia
It has always been my dream to work with
NatGeo and I always thought I could only achieve it
after some years of my photography career. But
this summer I was lucky to secure an internship at
National Geographic Georgia, as a photojournalist.
Since my favorite genre of photography has become
people and culture, this place is exactly where I
wanted to be and, hopefully, it is where I belong.
Even though the world went remote due to the Covid-19 pandemic, my job as a photographer was to
work remotely anyway. The beautiful part about this internship was that I got to travel around
Georgia to gather stories of people and write about them. Alongside photojournalistic activities, I
also did some office work like translating stories from English to Georgian for the local reader and
write “Retros” for the journal (gathering information about a certain person/story and writing a
short paragraph about it). At first, it was a bit tough to get to know my co-workers since we were
very afraid of the pandemic, but after some time as the situation became more manageable (for
Georgia, at least; we have handled the first wave very well) we slowly started to meet in our office,
with all precautions of course.
After we started to meet up, we started actively talking about our future plans and what we could
potentially do not only with my projects, but also for our social media and the company in a
nutshell. This is where my SJC experience came in handy. This is where my SJC experience always
comes in handy. I believe that the creativity I’ve acquired at SJC is the most important skill
alongside the ability to engage in dialectics with another person. Asking the right questions and
observing minute details has helped me and my co-workers to further the work at the company.
What I think is the most important help from St. John’s in my personal work is that I was able to
write and think about certain topics in a slightly different way. Looking for stories among people is like
looking for a topic from a book for annual essays. Listening to what people told me, I could then pinpoint
a specific question which then became the subject of inquiry. For four years, thinking about human
nature (our happiness, suffering, sorrow, etc.) made it more interesting to look at other people’s
perspectives about the world around us. Hence, my projects include more human stories which is exactly
what The National Geographic was asking me to do. Writing essays at SJC was an immense help.
The environment at NatGeo was fantastic. Everybody was friendly and supportive all the time.
Especially my mentor. She has taught me many things with regards to writing and photography, but
most of all I learned a lot of life lessons that helped me grow not just as a worker, but as a person
too. Natia is a great mentor and a friend and she never hesitated to pinpoint my mistakes while
providing solutions to help me with those problems. Working at NatGeo was a wonderful ride this
summer as I was given full freedom to choose topics of my fancy. I never felt restricted in what I was
doing. Most projects I had in my mind were welcomed.
The only downside was the pandemic. Working for a project means that I have to spend more
time with it than I thought I would have. One project can last for weeks because I have to repeatedly
visit the site I am working on to photograph it properly. This is the difference between this kind of
journalism and “news journalism” for instance. Hence, it was hard to be consistent with my projects
because the places I’ve been visiting have been locked down, then reopened and locked down again.
It really messed up my workflow. Marketplaces I’ve been photographing became empty and as I am
writing this, the marketplace I am currently working on is going to be shut down too (new cases of
the virus). But I hope I can work on them in the near future. I believe that after the internship is
done completely, I will be able to work for the company. Even if I don’t get a job there, I know that I
am always welcome to make projects and write for them at any time.
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Yoonkyoung Choh ‘20
Korea Startup Forum
Seoul, South Korea
I was thinking about whether I should go to
graduate school right after I graduate from St.
John’s College or if I should work in a field
that I am interested in? My decision was
helped when I won Hodson funding and got
an internship from Korea Startup Forum. I
could try out the workplace exactly where I
want to be because of the funding. I did not
need to think about financial problems during
the internship and the company hired me
without a financial burden. Therefore, I was
able to work at Korea Startup Forum, an ideal place to learn the environment of the startup field.
KSF, Korea Startup Forum, is technically not a forum but an association. Currently, KSF has
more than 1,500 startups as their members. KSF provides legal advice to the new startups and
represents the startups’ voice against the government’s regulations. On the one hand, Korea is tied
with Germany as the 6th largest country that has a lot of Unicorns—a unicorn is a term in the
business world to indicate a privately held startup company with values at over $1 billion. On the
other hand, Koreans often complain that because Korea has so many regulations, they cannot grow
as US or China can. I wanted to know more about the type of regulations that are applied to
companies that make it hard to grow and wondered if the regulations really need to be removed. I
thought KSF is the best place to see the big picture of the startup environment.
I was worried to be an employee because I didn’t have any previous work experience at all. But
since I had studied in the US, they asked me to research foreign countries’ startup regulations.
There is a “net neutrality” problem that every county is facing. It becomes a very important issue
because net is crucial in the 4th industry. The techniques of autonomous cars and remote medical
treatment and surgery will use the network. So, it is important for companies to keep the net usage
fee neutral. I have been researching the foreign cases of net neutrality policy. Trump has removed
the net neutrality and the EU has released guidelines about how to keep net neutrality and
transparency of network providers. Another issue that I have dealt with is the app commission that
a company has to pay to Apple when it wants to put an app in the Appstore. Apple and Google get
30% of the commission. This is a crucial policy to small startup companies who are dependent on
applications. Other than research about big issues in the startup field all over the world, I was able
to participate in many of the meetings. Because I was working in a policy department, my
supervisor went to a lot of meetings that were held in the national assembly and she attended a lot
of forums to provide a voice for the startup’s position.
I learned how to use my voice effectively and how to persuade people who have different ideas.
Lastly, I visited actual startup companies to find out more about the kinds of issues they have. It
was such a good experience to know the field. KSF has provided me with the experience of both
doing research and listening to the voice of startups.
I was not sure how my experience at St. John’s would help me at work. Especially as Startup is
all about new technology and running businesses and dealing with government regulations about
policy. I thought my experience of reading classics and discussing them was not linked to my new
work in KSF. What I learned at St. John’s College, however, is not just knowledge of classics, but
that I could confidently present my opinions and questions. In fact, my supervisor asked me about
my personal opinion, not the startup's position, so that she could create a startup’s voice that is not
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biased toward one side. We want to know that KSF's voice is not just beneficial for startup
businesses, but that it could have a positive impact on society as a whole too.
I can say that the ten-week internship made me a better person and has increased my curiosity
about the world. In KSF, I learned how the world is changing. Start-ups are weak compared to big
companies. Start-ups, however, are places that present innovative ideas that make the world more
convenient. I think observing what start-ups are doing is the best tool to see how much technology
is developing on the front line of change in the world. It is rewarding to bring their voices to the
public; they have brilliant ideas but cannot deal with the government and are buried by large
corporations. Previously, I thought that the way to know justice was to study politics in school. But
after an internship, I think I should put myself in the field to learn more. However, I can still aim to
take a graduate program when I feel I am lacking in academic knowledge. However, unlike in the
past when I thought I would do my master's degree right after I finished my academic studies, now
I want to gain more work experience.
The best part of the work environment in KSF was the people. My supervisor trusts the
employees and she believes that they work hard while she takes care of them. That is why I could
work freely, and the employees enjoy working with the boss. My supervisor has created an
atmosphere where everyone can talk comfortably about anything together, like friends. I was so
thankful to my co-workers who tried to teach me as much as possible. Those were the elements that
I would like to repeat in my future employment.
Thankfully, I have a chance to work longer by extending my contract right after my internship. I
am proud that my supervisor has recognized my ability and I am glad that I was helpful.
8
Francisco Contreras ‘20
Polycentric Learning Group
Guatemala City, Guatemala
Francisco is pictured on the top right.
My Hodson internship with the Polycentric Learning Group was a lesson in adaptability and
persistence. The internship was meant to take place in Guatemala City, and the purchase of plane
tickets and hotel reservations corroborated that. But the world had other plans. The worldwide health
pandemic changed my travel plans a few times, lost some of PLG's most important clients, and
redefined everyone’s tasks and roles at the organization.
Though I was flanked by chaos and uncertainty in my personal life, my daily remote work with
the organization was a haven from the storm. I worked directly with Albert Loan, founder of the
Polycentric Group, and Luis Fernando, a Santa Fe Johnnie who was also an intern. The three of us
formed a great team. At least three times a week we held Zoom meetings that would often last the
whole day and continue well into the evening. At these meetings, we would analyze the past,
present. and future of the Polycentric Learning Group. We brainstormed what direction to take and
how, we read relevant texts that were the foundation of the organization, and assigned tasks that
would turn these ideas into reality.
The rest of the time we worked on the tasks assigned at the meetings. My first task was the
transcription and subtitling of some training videos. My concurrent task was adding to the shared
documents that formed the bases of PLG's next project, an online liberal arts training program.
My St. John's education was essential for my work, especially this last task. In order to add to
the documents, I had to synthesize vast amounts of very complex texts, often philosophical and
sometimes technical. I had to read authors ranging from Michael Oakeshott to Michael Polanyi, to
Ludwig Von Mises. Our “magnum opus” at the internship was a chart of meta-questions that will
become the foundation of PLG’s online program. The whole team was proud of this great
accomplishment, and the two Johnnies could see our education represented in the chart.
I tried to perform as best I could. While I think I produced very good work, I was at times
distracted by the uncertainty and pain of the current world pandemic. Albert was very gracious and
always willing to meet and strategize on how to keep focused and healthy. I could not have faced
this time without the support of this great team; I only wish they could have seen me at my best.
Nonetheless, I leave my internship with great friends, a mentor, and future collaborators.
9Julia Cooper ‘20
Timberman Beverly Productions
Culver City, California
Funded in honor of Jodie Lee Adams
Interning online for the Production
Company was quite different than it might have
gone if it were in person. Had we been in
person, we might have had the opportunity to
visit writers room discussions, participate in
meetings with other producers and writers, and
many others. Being remote, however, had its
advantages as well! It gave me more opportunities to focus on the tasks at hand with more energy
and time. My reports and research were more in depth, and my online and zoom interactions were
more concise, detailed, and to the point. I also was able to spend more of my time reading and
watching shows scouting out for actors, directors, and writers. I was also able to get more focused
time with the other interns and producers, who were then able to help guide me in the ways of the
business, and teach me about the process through which a television show goes, especially in these
changing times. I feel that working remotely will help me adapt more quickly to changing
circumstances, and take advantage of all the time I do have. Time management is key!
My work at St. John’s helped a ton! The skills I have developed throughout my four years of
communication, and deliberation with my reading and writing were incredibly useful when
conducting research for new shows, looking for more meaning in the stories, and communicating
what was meaningful to me, with those around me. I feel very well prepared especially for the
content of what we were doing, even though I did not get to see my coworkers as often as I might
have liked. I felt no anxiety about the changing of the circumstances, and was able to do much
more with the time I had.
I really enjoyed my coworkers who were available, friendly, and relatable. They were all
enthusiastic to help, and I could see myself working with them in the future. I suppose the thing I
liked least was being unable to network and share my ideas more quickly with my coworkers. Not
being in an office meant that I couldn’t chat about our projects with the others in the office, and
some of the producers I hardly ever got to speak to. The silver lining, however, was that these
circumstances made me more deliberate with what I did want to share and say, and I was able to
solve problems on my own that I might have otherwise reached out for.
I would love to spend more time focused in this industry, and I think that this was a
direction I was already moving towards at the beginning of the summer. If anything, I feel more
confident with my decision, and motivated about pursuing my passions, even if that means taking
on more things at once. I have also learned that working with people that you like is key. I find it
really important to have a comfortable work environment with others who I can relate to as well as
move forward with. This inspires creativity and problem solving. It also means I can surround
myself with others like me and we can work together in our future endeavors and I love this idea.
Hopefully this internship could turn into future employment! I will continue reaching out and
making myself available if they have a job opening in the future.
10Sophia Cote ‘21
Kenneth Milton Fine Arts
Chestertown, Maryland
For my Hodson Summer Internship, I worked directly
under Kenneth Milton, a life-long art conservator. I was lucky
enough to be able to complete my internship in-person in his
studio, rather than online, as many of my peers had to do. My
time was spent quietly working alongside Mr. Milton and
gaining a practical, hands-on understanding of the
foundations of art conservation. I assisted Mr. Milton in
every step of conserving a piece. First we would assess the
painting and its chemical makeup to determine the best
chemicals to use for cleaning, then using them to remove
decades of old varnish and dirt off of the painting. Next, if the
piece was particularly warped, cracked, or otherwise
damaged, we would prepare the surface with facing, remove
it from the stretcher, and use a heated vacuum-sealed table to
soften the paint and smooth out the surface. If needed, we
would re-line the piece before returning it to the stretcher. The final step was to end-paint over any
areas where paint was missing or damaged, and finally to coat the piece in a fresh layer of varnish.
Since the work at hand depended so heavily on the needs of the individual painting, there were of
course many other techniques I became acquainted with—and in addition to working on the
paintings themselves, I assisted Mr. Milton in administrative matters.
I like to think that at St. John’s, we have the unique opportunity to practice philosophy rather
than just learn about it. During the course of my internship, I was able to learn the theories behind
methods of conservation through practice and experience, rather than learning them exclusively in
the abstract. I found that while conservation is a very physical endeavor, it is still full of
philosophical questions. Conservation can, in some cases, call into question the true nature of a
work of art; is the true form necessarily the original form, or do time and damage become as much
a part of the work as the original brushstrokes? If a painting changes drastically after restoration
(as in the case of Rembrandt's “The Mill”- when the centuries of discolored varnish were removed,
the sky changed from a dramatic, moody ochre to a pale, picturesque blue) does our previous
understanding of the painting become obsolete, or has the painting become something entirely
new? While I of course did not work on any Rembrandts this summer, thinking about these sorts of
questions did help me in learning how to make critical decisions regarding the process of
conserving or restoring a piece.
The workplace was quiet and contemplative, which I enjoyed. I was able to focus and work
carefully without distraction for long periods of time. I find that careful, meditative work is good
for my soul, and it is something I hope to be able to find in my future line of work. With every
painting I worked on, I gained a better appreciation for the rich life and history that each work of
art has, a better knowledge of the myriad of techniques utilized by artists throughout the centuries,
and a better understanding of what it means to see a project through from start to finish. Since I
plan to go into the art world after school, this new understanding was a welcome one. My only co-
workers were Mr. Milton and his cat, Neo, who made for very fine company. There was very little
that I disliked, and I am very grateful to Mr. Milton for making an offer that I could potentially
work with him in the future.
11Ava Cusey ‘22
American Enterprise Institute
Washington, DC
Over the summer I worked as an intern at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC in a communications
role for the Economic and Health departments. During the
time I worked from June through August, the scholars in
those departments had an unexpected increase in their
workload due to Covid-19. The need for effective Covid-19
policy was concentrated almost entirely on those fields. I
was tasked with constructing social media posts for articles
and writing virtual event summaries for the website. I also
sent the department relevant daily news related to health
and economics and completed various data entry projects and reports.
My role required combing through output from AEI’s scholars as well as other think tanks and
various news sources. Because AEI doesn’t dictate what its scholars research and write, it was
valuable for me to gain an in depth understanding of which qualities cause an analyst to be hired
professionally. Even working remotely, I was given opportunities to make connections and work as
part of the team.
I enjoyed working at AEI not only because I gained experience in my field of interest, but also
because the conversations were free and open. The other interns participating in the program held
a wide range of political ideologies. We would often spend free time discussing various topics
including cancel culture, campus cultures, free markets and foreign policy in our group chat. These
discussions were completely organic and spontaneous, and every contribution was respectful and
carefully thought out. This productive approach to discussion was also prevalent in every webinar,
podcast, article, and panelist discussion produced by AEI, and seemed to be a central value of the
organization as a whole. In a time when partisan polarization is increasing, working at AEI
convinced me that it is possible to resist polarizing forces in the political sphere with a higher level
of intellectualism and integrity.
Due to covid-19, we were unable to have many interactions with the professional scholars in our
fields. Our supervisor informed us that before the decision was made to go online, our desks were
already picked out in a nearby space easily accessible for walk by conversations. The change was
disappointing to all of us, and I had been looking forward to meeting new scholars and interns
every day in the shared lunch room. The experience was still overwhelmingly worthwhile,
especially because every opportunity for connection was taken. My supervisor established daily
video calls to organize tasks into somewhat arbitrary, but oddly comforting hourly
schedules. Large zoom meetings were arranged for all of the interns and we had access to guest
speakers, question periods, and optional discussion groups for topics that interested us. We were
encouraged to take advantage of one on one resume review sessions with members of the hiring
team. We also had social opportunities that allowed for smaller, rotating breakout rooms with
interns working in other think tanks in DC.
I would welcome the opportunity to work for AEI again in the future. My goal is to eventually
become an economic analyst researching large trends. This specialization is quite broad and could
be applied to many organizations including private companies, lobbying firms, intelligence
agencies, and nonprofit policy think tanks. AEI has shown me how meaningful change can be
affected through independently funded, non-coercive policy analysis. This experience has replaced
a vague future plan with a more solidified understanding of what it means to work as a professional
Economist. This experience has heightened my enthusiasm for this career path.
12Austin Dumas ‘21
NASA NIAC Program
Washington, DC
Funded by a grant from Dr. Stephen Forman
My internship was with NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced
Concepts) and took place completely online. Normally, I would have
had to drive a few hours every few days to attend team meetings and
discuss everyone in the team’s work from that week. But instead, we
had the meetings from home. One of the things that I came to
discover is that many serendipitous happenings were missed out on.
People who may have not been associated directly with my work
might have been met and there may have been other opportunities or
relationships developed from them, but none of that was able to happen. But I found that even with
this drawback, the internship was still full of warmth and opportunity in the relationships I
developed with my mentors, the other members of the NIAC team, and the NIAC fellows.
NIAC’s role with respect to NASA is unique and open-minded. The NIAC team tries to fund
scientists to develop concepts that are of low technology readiness but are ground-breaking with
respect to their potential to innovate or change what was thought possible for space exploration. In this
way, NIAC acts as a jump-starter for many—in both a monetary and publicity sense. NIAC has paved
its way into being quite a reputable branch of NASA because the NIAC team has proven that
innovation is possible, not through one or two contributions of clever scientists, but a whole network of
contributions through hundreds of scientists in an interconnected benefit to the scientific community.
But Congress must be periodically re-convinced of NIAC’s positive and worthy impact in an economic
and scientific way. The main role of this internship was to interview NIAC fellows (scientists who were
awarded NIAC funding at some level) and record their progress over the past 10 years.
This is where my St. John’s education directly benefitted my capabilities. My mentor asked me to
create my own questions and set up my own schedule for interviews. I basically had to set up the
whole operation myself, with a little guidance from my mentor when needed. Had I not developed the
soft skills necessary for an independent approach through St. John’s, I may have been much less able
to think through how I was going to juggle all the variables at once. Asking pertinent questions is one
of the main practices of St. John’s, and that skill had shone through in the thoroughness with which I
was able to complete my tasks and stay on the same page with my mentors. I also had a second task
with another member of the NIAC team. So, St. John’s also ensured that I would be able handle the
pressure of being responsible for so much at once.
Some of the questions were about how their concept grew: how their concept ended up being infused
into the status quo, or how they ended up making their concept more technologically ready. Other
questions went into their social impact, such as how many students they took under their wing or worked
with, how many jobs were created if they started a company based off their NIAC study, or if they started
a university organization that focuses on researching their specialty. The interviews were incredible.
Every fellow was creative, kind, and enthusiastic, and their concepts really changed my understanding of
how quickly mankind’s capacity to investigate space will explode in the coming decades.
The second task was to help my other mentor in ensuring astronaut safety by creating a way to
reasonably estimate how much radiation exposure they would get under many different thicknesses of
shielding and many different intensities of Solar Particle Events (SPE’s) under certain amounts of time.
The main problem, very loosely, is this: there are many SPE’s that have been recorded, all of different
strengths. We must have a way to determine how much exposure an astronaut may get under a certain
strength SPE. But to do that, we must have a representative SPE that most likely will fit the SPE
strength that they are about to encounter. However, none of them in particular will be able to be that
representative. Many problems come out of this fact, including the problem of how thick the shielding
of our space infrastructure and vehicles ought to be. One flaw of having one SPE as representative can
13be exemplified in the following story. One NASA committee was mistakenly choosing one SPE as a
representative for design standards for the shielding of everything—the base, the rover, the suit, etc.
But the issue is that designing our things to prepare for one SPE only is tricky. If we do that, we may be
well prepared in the shielding of the base, but not at all prepared for the lunar rover shielding. So, the
astronaut would undergo much more radiation exposure than we can reasonably allow.
There is a health policy concerning how much radiation an astronaut is allowed to have under
certain periods of time. There is a life-time dose limit, a one-year dose limit, and a 30-day dose limit.
Part of the importance of this task is that, without a way to reasonably estimate radiation dose, the
astronaut can be over-exposed and have short-term effects that may delay or upset the mission. One
example is skin blistering. Exposure even below the 30-day dose limit may result in this, which would
prevent the astronaut from wearing their space suit for some time. So, part of my task was to
understand the real scope, subtilty, and importance of the problem. My first real task was to organize
quite a large chart of data which contained the radiation doses of astronauts under 10 different SPE’s,
with several different points of radiation exposure (immune system, skin, heart, etc.), under seven
different shielding thicknesses, just to name a few variables. I had to rearrange the data in Excel to
make it easily search-able for ease-of-access.
Then, my mentor taught me a new statistical way of comprehending the SPE data that would
end up allowing us to create a time-evolution model of radiation exposure during a representative
event. The new way of comprehending a “representative event” would no longer be any one event, but
a percentage grouping of the total events that reached a certain percent of dose limit under a certain
time. So, if we chose the 20th percentile group to be the representative, that is akin to saying that 20
percent of events we have measured will have reached all the dose limits at a sooner time, and 80
percent will have reached them at a later time. With this new way, we can say whether the upcoming
SPE will be within a certain percentile of the group, and so assess the probable strength and radiation
exposure of the astronaut. I had to work out for myself what the definition of a representative SPE
could be, and I had to have many Johnnie-like conversations with my mentor in order to understand
the complexity behind this new way of understanding a “representative event”.
The St. John’s mathematics and lab program had certainly prepared me for this kind of work.
Otherwise, I would not have the slightest clue what it means to come up with a definition worthy of
mathematical precision, nor would I have been able to speak on these things with a fraction of the
care and attention required to complete the task with someone. Once my mentor created a time-
evolution Excel table, I had run as many iterations of data as I could so as to have the representative
event dose times and dose amounts recorded. That way, organizing the data would be the only thing
he would have had to do. This would have helped rid him of the most tedious part of the task, but the
internship ended before I was able to complete this last thing.
All in all, I would absolutely work for NIAC if I had no other plans. The team is made of
excellent people in every way. I felt at home within the first week, although I never physically met any
of them. Covid-19 was truly the only thing I disliked about the internship. There were of course many
moments of discomfort and doubt, but these were only steppingstones to feelings of confidence and
ease. At first, it was as if I didn’t believe the scientists or the NIAC team were even human. But every
one of them proved themselves to be welcoming, interesting, and fulfilled people. My academic and
career goals have changed because of my mentors. They gave me fantastic career advice and open-
mindedly accepted that I had more than one path to consider. I am planning on going into
government contracting now and going to the University of Maryland part time in order to get a
second bachelor’s in physics. The government job will enable financial security as well as allow me the
funding to conduct my own experiments from home. This way, I will not be bound to research along
the pre-determined lines of an organization. As great as organizations like NIAC are, interning with
them made me realize that sometimes scientists need to be self-starters. Even the most sci-fi
organizations like NIAC can feel restricted when it comes to what they will accept to be funded, and
some fellows I had interviewed were not able to continue their work for lack of funding. I don’t want
to get caught in the same trap, so it would be wise to take their examples as warnings.
14Caleb Dutton ‘21
American Shakespeare Center
Staunton, Virginia
This summer I worked as an archives intern with the education
department at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton,
Virginia. My project was to process a variety of Center
paraphernalia relating to play productions, education, and
administration dating back to the 1980’s. I also edited video files of
professional theatrical performances at Staunton’s Blackfriars
Playhouse and uploaded them to an online database designed for
educational purposes. Mostly, these were videos of entire plays
which were edited and packaged for viewing by students, but I
sometimes had to isolate snippets of individual scenes. During the last few weeks of my internship, I
critiqued several online college-level Shakespeare courses and wrote a report describing their
strengths and weaknesses, and why they would or would not appeal to me as a student.
Staunton has long been home to the American Shakespeare Center, so it was fortunate that my
internship was on-site. Most importantly, I got to get out of my parent’s house and experience living
by myself for the first time. I bought and cooked my meals and I was responsible for my own living
space. Staunton is located a considerable distance inland, so this was my first foray living away from
the ocean, as well as my first time living away from New England. I got around mostly by walking, so
I got to know the town and its people well. Becoming familiar with the unique characteristics of the
area made me feel that I was doing something new and getting out of my comfort zone.
More pertinent to my internship, my work was more engaging than it would have been if forced to
be remote. Being able to meet, work, and interact with people physically allowed for a more
comfortable and intimate work environment. I got to know my coworkers better and develop deeper
connections. Generally, there were three of us in the office on a given day, and I worked closely and
communicated with my supervisor each day. One day I was tasked with asking local businesses to put
up posters for upcoming shows. Almost all of them gladly accepted and I was able to explore the
town and meet many new people, making for one of the most pleasant experiences of my summer.
Being restricted to a remote internship would have rendered all these things impossible.
While I enjoyed being on-site, the internship itself wasn’t stimulating. My daily tasks felt
mundane and repetitive, although I was able to watch snippets of performances while working with
video files. Since my work didn’t require any deep thinking, I generally wasn’t able to apply skills I’ve
developed at St. John’s. When analyzing online courses for my last project, I did think about how I
would feel about them as a student. Still, this wasn’t intellectually demanding. Early in the
internship, I asked myself what the point was of saving so many insignificant papers and sorting
them all so carefully. A few weeks into the internship, my supervisor sent me an article about
archiving theatrical materials and how the study of them aids scholars, historians, acting companies,
and theatres themselves. Even though the internship lacked deep intellectual exploration, I did gain
an appreciation for the Center’s importance and understood that I was doing something meaningful
in the theatrical world.
While I learned valuable things during my summer, returning to the American Shakespeare
Center as an intern wouldn’t be my first choice. My time at St. John’s made me aware of my own
interest in deeper thinking and analysis of problems as opposed to work that is done just to move
on to the next job. Perhaps there are more fitting opportunities for me at the Center, but I would
first look elsewhere for new work. Before this summer, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to pursue as a
career, and I still don’t know for certain. However, I do know that I want to do something that will
challenge me and be intellectually stimulating, rather than something that’s easy to do but not
fulfilling. If I didn’t get very much out of my internship, I at least learned that valuable lesson.
15Rachel Gordon ‘21
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
Edgewater, Maryland
Funded by a grant from Dr. Stephen Forman
This summer, I interned at the Smithsonian Environmental
Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, MD. I worked with a small team
in an ocean chemistry lab, studying Coastal Ocean Acidification in the
Rhode River. I worked remotely, so most of my time was spent on Zoom
calls to discuss our data and attending weekly lab meetings. I also spent
a lot of time going through the historical data the lab had been collecting
since 2014, as well as reading scientific literature to get ideas about what
kind of experiments and testing methods our lab could utilize.
Working remotely framed most of my experience and limited what
kind of undertakings were actually realistic for me to do. Before the
pandemic, while I was in communication with my lab mentor about the project, the lab had in mind
a different project for me to work on where I would be spending a lot of time at the river collecting
samples and then running them back up to the lab to test them. Once it was time for me to actually
start work, though, we had to pivot and find ways that I could be productive remotely. I do not know
what it would have been like to actually work in the lab, but I definitely feel like I still had a lot of
responsibility and agency in forming and executing my project. I also feel like I contributed
something legitimate to the lab—I know that they will use my work to take the next steps in our
research. I bonded and worked very closely with the other people in my lab and at SERC, and I think
that our unique circumstances gave us a special sense of camaraderie. There was a lot of work that I
did on my own, and the learning curve was steep, but I relied on learning from my lab mates about
the research process and how to address the many problems our lab was facing.
Reflecting on the type of work I was asked to do, my St. John’s experience proved invaluable.
Reading complex scientific literature was a huge part of my job, and I was in a prime position to
synthesize that information, report back to my lab about its content, and utilize what I had read to
influence our methodology. In many ways, it is similar to what I do in my laboratory classes; I had
already had so much experience with thinking critically about complicated scientific and
mathematical texts. Communication of ideas and facts became an essential part of my job, as well as
knowing how to ask the right questions to understand something. Having not had much experience
with the chemistry I was reading about, in particular near-shore carbonate chemistry, I had to learn
as I went along. But I was able to treat most of our lab meetings like a Seminar and work with my
mentors to understand the fundamental problems confronting us.
SERC felt familiar to me because of how well I was able to integrate my educational experiences
into it. I loved how open everyone was to inquiry and how committed they seemed to helping me
understand the project and succeed in it. The internship program also held events for interns, so I
got to know most of the people who work at SERC, including researchers in other labs and people
who work in communications. Eventually, I want to work as a scientific researcher, but I also have
an interest in writing and journalism, and I’ve been searching for a way to combine these two fields.
The exposure to the communications department at SERC was a really important aspect of my
summer because I saw for the first time how two passions of mine might interact. With special
programming designed to show us all of these options, I feel that there are many opportunities at
SERC and beyond for me to pursue my goals in life. I would love to work at the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center after graduating from St. John’s. I see myself continuing to work in
my lab and furthering the research from this summer, and maybe working in the communications
department as well. My summer experience was truly transformative, proving to me that I want to
do research and also inspiring me to craft the career I want, which may involve combining different
fields that inspire me.
16Ellie Gott ‘21
Light House, A Homeless Prevention Support Center
Annapolis, Maryland
This summer I had the privilege of working as a
Communications Intern with the Light House (A Homeless
Prevention Support Center) in Annapolis, Maryland. As an
intern, I had many responsibilities. I had weekly training
sessions with the administration so I could learn about the many
positions that keep the Light House a well-oiled machine. It was
wonderful to get to know the Volunteer Administrator through
these calls as she guided me through topics on all Light House’s
projects, and volunteer positions, and showed me how they
contribute to the mission of Light House. I also observed a few
classes offered to clients and community members in their
Building Employment Success Training (B.E.S.T.) classes. The
classes were culinary training courses so that clients who enroll
can become prepared to join the world of culinary arts in the workforce. Following the observation
of these classes, I wrote a report on the class that was published on their website. This led to the
larger opportunity of writing many personal stories for the Light House, helping me step fully into
the organization as a “communications” intern. I conducted many phone interviews and wrote
personal stories; for example, I wrote one on how their resource center is adjusting to the
pandemic, and my most recent piece covered a 7-year-old who collected 900 pounds of food from
his neighborhood to donate to the Light House. This was a deeply fulfilling part of my job, as I was
able to develop my writing skills and my topics were meaningful to me.
Some of the more technical responsibilities I had was being a part of the approval and editorial
process of my stories with the Public Relations representative of Light House. She was also
wonderful and a great support during the writing process. The Workforce Grants Administrator
was my mentor throughout the internship, and she assigned me a project that would help clients
and the vulnerable populations of the community, learn how to use technology. I produced, filmed,
and edited a “technology 101” video, explaining the basics of a computer, and though it is a small
offering, I believe it will help those who need assistance entering into the complicated technology
era of today. As a cherry on top, I was assigned some readings to help me further understand the
purpose of the Light House. One of them was Richard Rothstein’s “The Color of Law” which
covered topics such as systemic segregation in the real-estate and property business.
Overall, it was a deeply fruitful experience, and I was excited to do these projects as I knew it
was going to help vulnerable populations of my community. My job was actually enhanced by the
pandemic, as the stories I wrote were in efforts to keep the community “in the know” about the
state of the Light House in such a tumultuous time. My experience at St. John’s has shaped me into
a true conversationalist and I had the wonderful privilege to utilize this quality while getting to
know my mentors and the administration at the Light House. The staff was so inspiring and kept
me focused on all the projects, as each one served a greater purpose than just the task or deadline
itself—it helped those in need directly. I am grateful to St. John’s College and those involved in the
Hodson Trust, as it allowed me a meaningful summer and further guided me into my love for non-
profit and community development work, as a future career.
17Sam Hage GI’20
Key School
Annapolis, Maryland
As a teaching fellow in the Civilizations program at the Key School in
Annapolis, my responsibilities were twofold. Generally, four days a
week I helped co-teach a 90-minute literature section of ninth-graders.
On about half of these class days, we had one group for the whole 90
minutes, breaking the lesson up into different activities. On the other
days, one group of students would come to our classroom for the first
half of the block, and then a different group would come to cover the
same material during the second half. For many of these split blocks, I
taught the second group alone while the head teacher observed. A few
times, I also substituted for teachers who had to miss a day of class.
During the semester we read Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, and
Beowulf—it was such a treat to reread these books with young students
encountering them for the first time. Key has high expectations for its
students; we seldom skipped anything, and the texts were always
faithful translations by well-regarded scholars. Classes were held as
something of a hybrid between a St. John’s-style seminar and a traditional high school lecture.
Usually the teacher and I would begin class by going over some of the content of the day’s reading,
clarifying characters, plot points, authorial details, and historical background. Much of the ensuing
discussion was driven by the students, who were usually instructed to prepare questions in advance,
which were just as often directed at their classmates as at the teachers. The discussion was always
grounded in specific passages from the text. We had many stimulating and enlightening conversations
this way. Toward the end of the semester I was also helping a good deal with the grading of reflections
and quizzes.
The other main feature of my internship was conducting sessions in the writing center. I was
assigned four or five students who came in for mandatory tutoring hours several times a week, but my
sessions were also open for others to drop in. In the writing center I got to work with students from all
grades and on different parts of the curriculum. Key students are expected to write several long papers
per semester, covering, in addition to the ancient literature listed above, books like The Stranger, The
Great Gatsby, The Alchemist, Plato’s Phaedo, and Prometheus Bound, along with many historical
documents to accompany the main texts. During these sessions I helped students solidify the habits of
effective reading and note-taking, proper citation of sources, and the elements of a well-written essay.
Working with students in the Civilizations program was an easy transition from the Graduate
Institute—their literature curriculum is largely a subset of our own. Most of the questions I presented
to the high schoolers at Key were the same questions I had asked about the same books at the St.
John’s seminar table. When I was asked to give my views on particular points from these books, they
were likewise usually thoughts that had arisen during my own classes. Most of all, St. John’s prepared
me for an unmediated encounter with great works of literature, bringing my own questions and
coming up with my own answers—the kind of thing often required from a high school teacher, who is
asked to mediate the encounter between his own students and the text. In turn, the Key School
fellowship also enhanced my ability to participate in St. John’s classes, by honing my ability to ask
clear questions that promote fruitful discussions.
It also taught me something important about my career plans. Though I’ve learned that teaching
high school is not necessarily my dream job, it has helped clarify my thinking about PhD programs.
With such a competitive college teaching job market, many PhDs end up at private high schools
instead. If this should happen to me, I now have a good idea of what such a job would be like, and I
think I would be well prepared to begin that kind of career.
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